I am in business for myself, and times are tough all over. I work freelance, so I catch clients as I can, but to supplement my income, I tutor
college students. I did not graduate magna cum laude, and I certainly don't have a degree in biochemistry, although I've tutored two students who
were struggling with biochemistry. How is that you may wonder? I didn't know much at all about biochemistry until that first student came to me,
but it wasn't my knowledge of biochemistry that helped get him through that class. Indeed, it was precisely because he understood I knew even less
than he did, but was able to read his text book and notes along with him, was able to show him how to use the internet to enhance his understanding,
and was able to teach him how to navigate the political system of higher education, and making sure he regularly visited his professors office during
office hours, that brought him from a low C to a high B. I was hoping to guide him to an A, but he was thrilled to have that B+.

I work steadily tutoring students all year long, including the summer, mostly because teachers aren't effectively teaching their students, and this
creates a market for people like me. I do it as supplemental work, so some semesters, when the freelance work is going smoothly, I have to turn
students away. Perhaps you might consider tutoring. However, I have a liberal arts degree, which means I am confident in tutoring not just
biochemistry, but engineering, marketing, history, psychology, biology, literature, and frankly, no subject have I shied away from, but then again, I
haven't been approached by an astrophysicist student, or a molecular biology student, and maybe at some point my cockiness will meet its match. If
so, I guess I'll just have to refund the money and help that poor soul find a better tutor.

The difference between labor and business is this; labor sacrifices profits for security, and business will risk security to make a profit. There is
nothing at all wrong with being a laborer, if they understand that security is a delusion, and there is nothing at all wrong with making a profit, if
one understands there is no such guarantee. It's all in the attitude, and when times are tough all over, some see a crisis and others see
opportunity. It's all in the perspective.

It's always about money. Everything is about money and I am sick of it. Money isn't everything and I wish more people could see this but they
don't. Money only buys material things. Yes it pays for a home or power, but we have free energy but THEY don't want us to have it because they
won't make money from it. It's always about money.

My mother is a teacher and she has a hard time every summer because summer classes aren't always guaranteed.

How is it precisely determined what the value of a teacher is, when what a teacher produces is something that is realized in the future, and not
easily measurable?

If you open minds, and help to create an innovative, creative generation... what they could "produce" might be worth billions.

Collectively, teachers play a role in this.

But you cannot forget how much influence the "masters of the universe" have had on the teaching establishment, and have designed the system to
produce "obedient workers" (according to George Carlin)

I have always tried to open kids minds while not going so far as to get myself fired. And I believe I am responsible for riches which will not be
realized for 10, 20, or 30 years.

Ultimately, people are not working to create more "products". We do what we do because we believe it will make us, and the world happier, safer,
and more prosperous. And I'm not talking about that silly game of acquiring more possessions. It's about creating an environment where the human
soul can thrive.

If the future is one where more people are happier more of the time, isn't that worth something? How can that be measured in terms of a dollar?

I myself find it difficult to find a job. Now it seems it is who you know that gets the job in my field. It is not about who works hard or who has the
greatest talent. One of my uncle's is a math genius and he works with peoples pensions and stuff. He told me that a long time ago predicted this
economy would collapse. He personally blames how people get hired on why the economy failed. If we actually had real employees who knew what that were
doing, then none of this would happen.

In many Asian countries, India, Eastern Europe, and Russia, there is a big demand for anyone that can teach American English, like the kind spoken in
Hollywood movies. Some places the pay isn't high, but the cost of living is not that high either.

My sister had no luck finding a job as a graphic designer but she took a few Japanese courses in college. Now she lives in Japan and pretty much can
pick where she wants to work as an English teacher.

$1550 sounds high for Walmart wages. I know one lady here in Texas, who makes $7.50 per hour working for them, and she considers herself to be
"lucky" if she gets more than 33 hours per week. She can't work part-time because they change her schedule/days off every week so she never knows
when she would be available to a second employer.

She is considered a full time employee. Do the math at her normal max, and you will see that is $247.50 per week or $990 per month, GROSS, before
taxes.

I don't know where that poster is from, but $1,550 a month after taxes isn't that bad for a college graduate in a lot of smaller towns and cities.
I'd have been more than happy with it when I graduated with a bachelor of science in 2002. From an earnings perspective, my college degree was one
of the worst investments I've ever made. I had considered going back for my master's degree in order to open up more (any) opportunities, but in
the end, I'm glad I decided against it. Its likely I would have just been throwing good money after bad.

Originally posted by GreenBicMan
If you live in the USA there are more than enough chairs for anyone that wants to sit in one.

I'm fairly certain that is why the U6 unemployment rate is over 17%? I'm also fairly certain this is why the REAL unemployment rate is probably
over 22%? I'm sure this is why nearly every municipality in the state of Ohio is beginning to lay people off and state employees are taking forced
furlough?

No offense, but you come across as one of those rather smug people fortunate enough to have a decent job and take it for granted. I know, I used to
be one of "those" people as well. The shoe is now on the other foot for me. Don't be so smug, you're only one unfortuante day away from it being
YOU!

I think it may have something to do with a rigid world systen, anchored in slavery through debt. And the fact this govt. is still the same one that
made slaves of the American people in 1913. When they decided to tax our income. The taxing of our income is unconstitutional and non existent
before then.

We have nothing but enemies in Washington. They see us as a vast resource that can be tapped over and over. They care not if they run this horse into
the ground. At that point they will shoot it and sell it for glue.
Maybe make a lamp shade. I say burn D.C. it isn't a part of this country anyway.

$1550 sounds high for Walmart wages. I know one lady here in Texas, who makes $7.50 per hour working for them, and she considers herself to be
"lucky" if she gets more than 33 hours per week. She can't work part-time because they change her schedule/days off every week so she never knows
when she would be available to a second employer.

She is considered a full time employee. Do the math at her normal max, and you will see that is $247.50 per week or $990 per month, GROSS, before
taxes.

[edit on 26-5-2010 by manta78]

I was using Walmart wages as an analogy. Walmart managers (non-educated) easily make that.

Unfortunately, I did not finish college. I went for the money and it worked out well for me. However, I feel that anyone with a bachelor degree
should make more than those meager wages. After all, they proved they have what it takes....discipline, articulation, intelligence and the list goes
on. It seems like a degree nowadays is absolutely worthless. I feel any college graduate should make at least twice that much. Gotta pay back those
tuition fees.

You can be certain if I had a degree, I would be quite angry at making those kind of wages. Of course, we are going through a depression and we take
what we can get.

The Job Market is tough, there is no doubt about that, and wages are distressingly low too.

However, what made America originally great was the entrepreneurial spirit. Chances are you have some kind of talent you can put to use and market it
yourself, or can make some kind of product for minimal investment and resell it for more than you invested in it.

I used to work in an industry that traditionally has a high rate of turnover amongst managers, as new general management or new ownership tends to
sweep out existing managers in favor of ones that they have worked with in the past.

The company could be doing well, and you could be highly productive, but that wouldn’t spare you from getting the axe if a new owner or general
manager had someone else they had worked with before they preferred to put in the position.

I finally got tired of that, and started marketing the same basic functions as I did as an employee as a stand alone business. It took a while to get
going, but that works very well for me. Usually on average of once or twice a year someone I know will ask me if I want a job at such and such place
of business they are working for, as an employee, and I just laugh, and say no thanks.

The only person who can fire me is me, and conversely the only person who is ever going to pay me what I am truly worth is me.

Market yourself as a private tutor, write term papers and sell them, write short stories and sell them, check with local small businesses if they have
correspondences or advertizing that could use grammatical revue or correction.

Think what else you might be able to do that would have an individual per instance value to someone. Think of a cheap product you might be able to
create, paintings, woodworking, candle making, pie baking etc., and get out there and market them and sell them.

Buying flowers wholesale cheap and then bundling them into arrangement requires little investment. Check with your township and get a vendors license,
and find a street corner and peddle them. Appeal to your students to make their parents become customers.

There are two time honored sayings you might want to keep in mind.

Those who can do, do those who can’t teach. Obviously being in the former category can be more beneficial than the latter. Figure out what you can
really do, and then do it well, and sell it well, which leads to the second time honored statement.

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